A major objective in the development of personal care absorbent articles over the last decade has been the creation of products which provide a clean and dry feel. Most personal care absorbent articles including diapers, training pants, incontinence devices, sanitary napkins, bandages and the like employ a liner or body facing material which is adapted to be placed adjacent the wearer's skin. Using diapers as an example, originally diapers were very wet to the touch once they had been insulted due to the inability of the diaper to channel fluids away from the wearer's skin to areas in the interior of the diaper where the liquid could be bound up and retained. As diaper and other personal care product designs have advanced, such products have become increasingly more effective at channeling fluids away from the wearer's skin and thereby creating a much drier feel. This has a number of benefits including, but not limited to, skin wellness, especially with diaper rash, and improved comfort to the wearer.
In the area of infant and/or child care, one of the most recent advances has been the creation of training pants which are a cross or bridge between diapers and underwear for children. The purpose of training pants is to provide a transitional garment during the toilet training stage of a child's development. One aspect of such training is the realization by the child that he or she has wet themselves. Unfortunately, the developments of personal care absorbent articles such as diapers and training pants have become so advanced that when an insult takes place, the child will feel little or no prolonged discomfort due to the liner quickly drying back out. It may be desirable if such products as diapers, training pants and incontinence garments would initially, upon insult, feel wet or damp so as to alert the wearer and temporarily remind them of the fact that an insult has taken place. For a number of reasons, once the insult has taken place, it may not be practical or possible to change the soiled product. As a result, the wearer may have to wear the soiled product for some length of time. Consequently, once the initial signal of an accident has been given to the wearer, it would be desirable if the liner material would then revert to as dry a feeling as was possible so as to provide comfort to the wearer until such time as the product could be changed. There is therefore a need for a personal care absorbent article which would initially provide a "wet" feel to the wearer to indicate that an insult has taken place but which over time would provide the wearer with as dry a feel as is practically possible. The present invention is directed to such a product.